Ultima™ 9: Ascension

... and don't play this game. If you love - or even just 'like'! - the Ultima series, don't ruin it forever by 'playing' this trainwreck of a 'game'. Other reviewers have said that the graphics were impressive for the time, and they were (they look like hell now) but that's doesn't make up for the fact that the game is completely asinine and a rotten waste of time. $6 is too much for this. Seriously. Take the six bucks and BUY ANYTHING ELSE. Literally. Buy a beer. Go to McDonald's and have a Big Mac. Buy any other Ultima game. Just not this one. Please.

Where to being with Ultima IX? The problems with the game, from its glitchyness to its disregard of the Ultima history are well documented. The community patch and dialogue patch fix a lot of things, but fundamentally the game still doesn't really 'feel' like an Ultima. The world still feels empty, a haunting image of the Britannia we left at the end of the Black Gate. Some say that if it wasn't an Ultima, it'd be considered a good, even great game (technical problems aside). I don't know about that. So why play it? Well for one thing, to this day I have never seen sky rendered so beautifully. The sunsets are GORGEOUS. Certain parts of the country side still look amazing, despite the relatively primitive polygons used. And finally closure. You've journeyed as the Avatar for up to 13 previous games (depending on your view of the canon!). How does it end? I will say that the ending wasn't satisfying to me, but in the end I was glad to have finished it and the series.

Your knowledge of the world shall be great!

I got this game hot off the presses back when it was first released... and it's the reason why, although I have Ultimas I-VII here on gog.com, I do not intend to buy it ever again. Electronic Arts is responsible for the death and desecration of many once-great development houses (Bullfrog, anyone?) and Origin was not spared this fate. Already the taint could be felt in Ultima VIII, but it was Ultima IX that received the full love of Electronic Arts' kiss of the spider woman. The game is disrespectful to canon established in all of the previous Ultima games, is chock-full of plotholes and many familiar faces that return are grossly out-of-character. The story makes little sense and it was obviously hurried out the door. What Electronic Arts did to the Ultima franchise is not unlike what Achilles did with Hector's corpse in the Trojan war. Stay away from this albatross and go back to playing Ultima VII.

Ultima 9 is an awesome game that stands up to the series; when it first came out it was buggy, but the artwork and voice acting is phenomenal. This was (I believe) the first fully 3d version of the Ultima series; and though it received a fair share of mixed reviews, you'd be crazy to pass up a chance to play the final chapter of the Avatar and his journeys. Ignore the lower ratings; this game may not meet "AAA" standards you may expect, but it's a "AAA" title in my book!